TEACHING children how to cope in an emergency and what to do to save their own lives and ensure the safety of others in just ten minutes, is a daunting task.

However, it is a challenge taken on by a variety of groups who get together to run Crucial Crew.

The police, fire brigade, St John Ambulance, Transco and Northern Electric, join forces with other groups like Asda, school nurses, local authorities and the health and safety executive to organise Crucial Crew at different venues across the county.

It is currently being run at Deverell barracks in Ripon and involves training year six primary school pupils to cope in various emergencies, and learn potentially life-saving skills.

Around 250 pupils aged ten and 11 spend half a day at Crucial Crew, when they have two hours to go through 11 vivid 'real-life' scenarios, spending ten minutes at each one.

The scenarios include a variety of situations from farm safety and kitchen safety, to drugs awareness, safety around electricity, what to do in the event of a fire at home, dealing with a gas leak, road traffic accident and safety around lorries.

Mr Peter Stead, aged 54, is an ex-police inspector who now works as schools liaison officer for first aid charity St John Ambulance and runs the road accident scenario with North Yorkshire Police.

During the three weeks he is at Ripon, 2,900 year six pupils from 121 schools in the Harrogate and Ripon area learn how to deal with a road accident.

He said: "Bearing in mind these kids are going up to the big school, they are going to be under different pressures, walking or travelling further to a bigger school.

"So we put them under pressure here in a safe environment, so if they do have to do it for real they can make their mistakes here today, so tomorrow they'll know what to do.

"Statistics show children are more likely to be injured on their way to school in a car, than they are walking or even on a bike. That's why we do a road accident."

When the children reached Mr Stead, they stood outside a room where they heard screeching of breaks and a loud crashing sound, which grabbed their attention instantly.

They then moved inside where they found Sharon Burns, from Ripon Voluntary Service, who was spending the day pretending to have been knocked off her scooter.

Broken glass and blood on a busy road greeted the children, who then had to decide what to do.

Many suggested phoning for an ambulance, but Mr Stead explained that they should find out what happened first and what injuries the victim had.

In an age when hospital dramas like Casualty and ER show patients having to be resuscitated every five minutes, it was not surprising that some pupils wanted to jump straight in with mouth-to-mouth.

Fortunately Mr Stead was on hand and with a few leading questions and it was not long before the children worked out for themselves that it was probably best to ask the victim what had happened and if she was injured.

Having discovered she had hurt her leg and had a cut on her arm Mr Stead showed the children how to make her comfortable, but stressed the importance of not moving her or removing her helmet.

The pupils then had a quick reminder of their green cross code when using a pedestrian crossing to get to the phone box opposite.

At this point they discovered the phone box had been vandalised. Mr Stead said: "Vandalised phone boxes still do cost lives. Some will say what about mobile phones, but I always tell them that mobile phones don't work everywhere."

The youngsters then had to think on their feet and decide where else they could go to use a phone.

They decided they could try a nearby chemists or pub and ask to use the phone, or knock on someone's door to ask to use their phone.

After knocking on a door in the street scene, PC Yvonne Agars-Smith came on the scene, pretending to be a neighbour.

She told the children there was no-one in at the house but said they could go with her to use her phone.

Worryingly, the majority of youngsters decided to go with her, at which point Mr Stead asked more questions to get them to realise that they should not go with her, because she was a stranger.

Instead they worked out that they should ask her to phone for an ambulance for them.

Finally they got to experience making an emergency call at another public phone box which was working.

This phone was connected to a real operator and to a speaker, so while one youngster did the dialling and talking and got to find out what it was like to make a 999 call, the others could all hear what happened.

Mr Stead said: "It's getting them to learn to stay calm, work out where they are and listen to what the operator is asking."

The other demonstrations were equally impressive.

North Yorkshire Police and the Ministry of Defence jointly ran a drugs awareness scenario, where the youngsters enter a disco and as they danced to S Club 7, they were offered what looked like mints by a stranger.

The police also ran a safety round lorries scenario, demonstrating why children should not go near lorries.

Perhaps the most dramatic scenario was run by North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service.

While the youngsters had a sleepover in a bedroom, Mr John Blake from Northallerton fire station, helped the youngsters decide what to do in the event of a fire.

As smoke billowed under the door, they realised it was best to keep it closed.

They also learned about the importance of smoke alarms as Mr Blake said: "Smoke kills, not fire, because smoke suffocates."

He also told them that to break a double glazed window they should go for a corner and not the middle.

They also worked out that if they had to jump from an upstairs window it was safest to dangle from the window sill, to reduce the distance they had to drop.

Having just ten minutes to get life saving messages across, meant that each scenario had to be hard-hitting, grab the youngsters' attention and be informative.

Mr Stead pointed out that it was a lot to take in: "If at the end of the two hours they remember four or five things, that's great. If I was them, at the end of the two hours I'd have a headache, because we bombard them with messages."

When asked if ten minutes is enough for each scenario, Mr Stead said he knows Crucial Crew works, because a youngster who attended Crucial Crew in York used the skills he learned when his brother impaled his arm on a fence just a few weeks later.

"It definitely makes a difference, I wouldn't do it otherwise," he said.